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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27205876">A Revelation</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerpentineFxrtune/pseuds/SerpentineFxrtune'>SerpentineFxrtune</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Six [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Bakugan Battle Brawlers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abuse of Power, Aelia Taran talks a lot, Alien Biology, Alien Character(s), Alien Culture, Alien Invasion, Electrokinesis, Fainting, Families of Choice, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Attempted murder, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, Implied/referenced Child Soldiers, Loss of Trust, Major Original Character(s), Missing Persons, Nightmares, Original Character(s), Other, Prodigies, Sleepy Cuddles, Threats of Violence, contact lenses are a ruse, faked amnesia, terrible contact lens usage, thermodynamics because aliens</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:20:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,968</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27205876</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerpentineFxrtune/pseuds/SerpentineFxrtune</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Aelia Taran kept a secret, or a few, for six years. The best reaction she gets is shock, and at worst, someone faints over it. Not to mention the trust she'd built up that then crumbled like shortbread.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Six [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1986178</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Revelation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>What is Shun, but a punching bag of emotions? Poor guy. I'm aware OC/Canon is kinda implied by Aelia's chat with Shun after his nightmare, but it's not existent.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sometimes the brawlers cuddled each other in their sleep. This usually happened on freezing winter nights, where any extra warmth was appreciated, or on hot summer nights. The reason for cuddling on summer nights came down to one brawler, Aelia, being as cold as the arctic- perfect for the space heaters of the group.</p><p>Shun woke up with a start, moments before being killed in his nightmare, agitating the tired heat sink that he'd wrapped his arms around in his sleep. He paled. He wasn't sure he could look Aelia in the eyes when morning came. The slit pupils were something Gundalians had, too, just like her low temperature.</p><p>Did she even take her contact lenses out?</p><p>Aelia twisted her upper body around, lower body still in Dan's messy embrace (he was fast asleep, he couldn't care). Shun barely noticed, until he registered the feeling of being watched, and zoned himself back in.</p><p>She hadn’t taken them out. She’d been asleep for four hours, and she had them in?!--</p><p>"You good?" Aelia asked softly, placing a cold and dry hand on Shun's cheek. He covered her hand with one of his own, feeling an embarrassed flush burn across his cheeks.</p><p>"Just a nightmare..." Shun surmised vaguely, hoping Aelia wouldn't do what she immediately then did.</p><p>"About what?" She queried in a hushed voice. Neither relaxing his nerves, or making them worse, her tone was unfortunately affectionate and concerned. Damn Aelia for caring so much. If his fears were proven true, he wasn't sure he could fully bring himself to hate her... if she was to stay this affectionate.</p><p>"Just some wild accusatory dream; Dan was a gundalian in it," Shun half lied, inwardly ecstatic when Aelia didn't question him further, despite how unsure he sounded.</p><p>"It'll be ok," Aelia whispered, "He's human, no doubts about it. And he'd never go against us, least of all you." Shun picked up on a jealous edge in her voice, but so unmistakably, heart-swellingly affectionate. It sounded like her heart would explode if any more affection was expressed.</p><p>"We should go back to sleep," Shun mumbled pointedly, feeling embarrassed he even woke her up. He felt embarrassed that he’d even lied to her.</p><p>Aelia giggled, "I'll do my best to protect you from nightmares for the rest of tonight."</p><p>He felt a little reassured. But the nightmare came back. The Aelia in his nightmare, gundalian, bloodied knife in hand, tutted at him, <em>“You’re a terrible liar.”</em> After her insult though, the nightmare faded into a dream. It was over. His reassurance surged, smiling ever so softly in the waking world.</p><p> </p><p>His reassurance was torn to shreds when Lena suddenly asked for Aelia’s name in full, completely out of the blue, the next day.</p><p>"I knew something was off... you! You're our missing scientist, Doctor Aelia Taran, missing for 6 whole years, and you're not dead! Thank everything you're still alive!!" Lena rambled excitedly, a genuine smile etching its way onto her face. Mason stood behind her, and looked as equally confused as anyone else, although he was undeniably excited too.</p><p>Aelia repeated Lena’s description of her under her breath, letting the words drip off her tongue.<br/>"I wasn't expecting anyone to care about me going missing, you know." She confirmed with a bored sounding click of her tongue, to Shun's complete horror (he could trace a quarter of it to the idea that it would be normal for gundalians to not care when one of their own went missing), "But, you've made a horrible mistake, Lena."</p><p>Shun's ears pricked in curiosity, as did Lena's.</p><p>"Earth is my home now. The Interspace is supposed to be filled with humans, enjoying their lives and making friends, people who would've never met otherwise..." Aelia began, tapping her foot in her pause, "But you took away their safety, and their futures. You endangered them! They're child soldiers, who get brainwashed!"</p><p>With a bristling growl, Aelia began to yell, "And for what?! A war Barodius refuses to end, because he's selfish and power hungry?! They're my aliens! My people! And as you should know, Lena Isis," she slipped a card into the newly summoned gauntlet on her left arm, "we're a notoriously protective race of people, especially for alien races who cared for us, and continued to do so, no matter who we were! Now then,"</p><p>Shun looked up, as Aelia threw her arm out to the side. He should've seen it coming (from his year in the Resistance with her), but her usual response to enemy units still caught him off guard. The blade burst into existence like a potassium flame, buzzing and crackling angrily.</p><p>"Leave my sight," Aelia ordered, a high pitched death rattle sounding from her throat, appearance shifting gundalian, "before I send you both back to Gundalia in boxes!" Lena's face of genuine happiness, which had become inquisitive curiosity as Aelia spoke, suddenly drooped into near paralysing fear, tears threatening to spill behind her glasses. Mason, lucky for the both of them that his response to danger was flight, grabbed Lena's wrist, and teleported out in a panic.</p><p>She did sound like a furious general to him, though.</p><p>After a few seconds to ensure Mason wasn't faking her out, Aelia expelled the blade. She slipped the activator card in her pocket, as her appearance shifted back to human looking. The gauntlet dissipated into the aether of the Interspace that she’d summoned it from. The Interspace was deadly silent. No one dared move, nor speak. The only thing that broke the palpably thick quiet was the sound of Shun's consciousness giving way, causing him to collapse into an unconscious heap of shock on the Interspace floor.</p><p>He was right.</p><p>
  <em>He hated being right.</em>
</p><hr/><p>“You have a lot of explaining to do...” Linus cautiously said, trying not to make her angry. He’d just watched her pull a vestal-based weapon out of literal nowhere, and threaten to essentially dismember the sleeper agents, “so... please explain?”</p><p>He was on edge, as was anyone else, Aelia included. Everyone had lost their trust in her. Who wouldn't? They were against the gundalians, in an interplanetary war, and found out just now that one of them was one of the enemy aliens!</p><p>“I was going to explain and reintroduce myself when I became 18, which is next year, but... with the gundalians deciding to show up and ruin things, and with the war between Gundalia and Neathia on our doorstep... I decided that I’d stay quiet about it until a few years after a peaceful resolution,” Aelia summarised, “we live up to 110 on average, so that’s plenty of time for me. But... humans live to 80 on average, so there was a chance I’d go my whole life playing a lie."</p><p>Fabia blinked in surprise. 80 years? That’s no time at all!</p><p>“But, hey! Lena indirectly revealed me to be gundalian, so I can’t exactly stay quiet about it anymore.”</p><p>“You lied about who, and what, you are,” Dan started tensely, attempting to play the role his best friend would usually take up, “So, what else have you lied about? Be honest. Also, why did you lie about what you were in the first place?”</p><p>“Because humans look like neathians, and I was terrified that I’d get executed; the greater universe’s alien races don’t like gundalians all that much, unsurprisingly.”</p><p>At Dan’s horrified expression, Aelia continued, “I lied partially about my background. It was the truth, but it was retooled, as to pretend I was from Earth. I did lie about having amnesia, but it made it convenient to leave details out; I simply forgot them, and Arakna could fill them in, where we could get away with it.”</p><p>“Uh... She- Lena- said something along the lines of you being missing... were you important enough that going missing was really bad?” Julie added, rubbing circles into the shoulders of the currently mentally out-of-commission, but definitely conscious now, Shun.</p><p>“I guess that’s the cue to tell you how I got to Earth… It’s a long story, but in the most concise form I can think of...”</p><p>Taking a deep breath, Aelia began, “My family are made up of prodigy scientists. As a result, we’re highly coveted by the current leader, and are forced to stay in our home bunker from age 20 onwards, just so it’s harder to potentially have us captured."</p><p>"Dr Kazarina, the head of science, and also one of the Twelve orders, didn’t like that an 11 year old was getting more attention than her,” she shuddered, “which she misread as making it harder for her to potentially become queen, instead of me just being a useful asset... so, she decided to deal with me."</p><p>Aelia made mental note of Fabia's disgusted facial expression, as if she’d taken a bite out of a particularly sour lime. She’d had run-ins with Kazarina too, it seemed.</p><p>"In the end, she built a machine similar to the warp in the Gehabich labs up in Moscow, but with random co-ordinates. The plan, and it worked, was to have me inspect it, and throw me through an open portal with randomised co-ordinates that specifically didn’t lead to Gundalia, Vestal, or Neathia- anywhere we knew of, really.”</p><p>“It led to Earth instead.” Dan filled in with a hushed tone of realisation, during Aelia’s pause for her breath.</p><p>“Mhm. Kazarina actually wanted me to be thrown into the unforgiving maw of the cosmos, killing me. She attempted to murder me, is what I’m saying. If it weren’t for the fact that Earth existed, I’d be long dead.”</p><p>The room fell into an uncomfortable silence. Fabia fiddled with the trains of her jacket, unsure of how to respond.</p><p>“Lena’s right, by the way; I’ve been missing for 6 years. Knowing Gundalia’s scientific community, they've probably attempted to send out searching parties. Too bad all the scientists that threw me through the portal were under Kazarina’s mind control, and have likely all been executed to cover her tracks.”</p><p>“... No wonder you’re not siding with them.” Linus mumbled, realising to his surprise that he’d been holding his breath subconsciously.</p><p>“Besides Kazarina... I don’t think I could turn on the people who cared for me; my found family. If Gundalia wins, then the Interspace and Earth, my home, is where Barodius is going to stick his mudded hooves next. As if I’d let that happen without a fight.”</p><p>Fabia visibly relaxed, like a deflating balloon, “Were you aware of Ren being-”</p><p>“A gundalian? Yes. I knew him personally before he even showed up,” Aelia gulped, “I thought back then that he wasn’t a sleeper agent, though… rather, he’d escaped Gundalia on an opportunity; hacking into the Interspace. Both of us have the same issue of being forced to stay unseen from age 20 onwards, at least on Gundalia,” she sighed, “but his job is far different from mine. If anything, his makes him out to be an important slave... which is why I thought he'd escaped. If it had been anyone else, I wouldn’t have been so lenient…"</p><p>Putting her face in her hands, Aelia wailed, “If I didn’t get so side-tracked, I probably could’ve at least halted his progress in overtaking the whole place! And I should’ve cracked down much earlier!” Aelia sparkled in electric frustration, the crackles audible, “but that happened, and I can’t change it. And if I can’t change it, I’m damn well going to try and right it... somehow."</p><p>“At least we know there’s no chance you’re dangerous towards us, the Interspace, Earth and Neathia,” Fabia chimed, “that being said, aren’t the Twelve Orders going to know you’re alive, and against them?”</p><p>“Not if the agents want to stay alive!” Aelia grinned. Linus set a mental reminder for himself; don’t make Aelia angry.</p>
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